China quake toll climbs
BEIJING — Rescuers with shovels and sniffer dogs chipped away at collapsed hillsides Tuesday as the death toll rose to 94 from a strong earthquake in a farming region of northwest China.
Just one person was listed as missing and 1,001 as injured in Monday morning’s quake near the city of Dingxi in Gansu province.
About 123,000 people were affected by the quake, with 31,600 moved to temporary shelters, the provincial earthquake administration said on its website. Almost 2,000 homes were destroyed, and about 22,500 damaged, the administration said.
The quake toppled brick walls and telephone lines, shattered mud-and-tileroofed houses and sent cascades of dirt and rock down hillsides, blocking roads and slowing rescue efforts by crews trying to reach remote areas.
Hospitals set up aid stations in parking lots to accommodate the injured, while hundreds of paramilitary People’s Armed Police fanned out to search for victims in the region of terraced farmland where the quake struck about 1,200 kilometres west of Beijing.
Min county in Dingxi’s rural south accounted for almost all the deaths and the worst damage.
Urban areas where buildings are more solid were spared major damage, unlike the traditional mud and brick homes in the countryside.
The government’s earthquake monitoring centre said the quake was magnitude-6.6, while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 5.9.
Heavy rain is expected later in the week, raising the need for shelter and increasing the chance of further landslides.